Eating Styles: Salsa Dipping Edition!

Whenever there’s chips and salsa around (or nacho cheese, or bean dip), you see two kinds of dippers: those who scoop and those who dunk. The scoopers dig deep, getting all the good chunks piled up on top of the chip while the dippers politely dunk a corner of their chip in the bowl, coming up with a sheen of sauce over the chip and nothing more.

There are pros and cons to each method. Of course, the gluttonous scoopers get more of the tomato-ey, onion-ey goods, but is that a positive thing? Of course, there’s always the risk of chip breakage, followed by the annoying task of having to fish your chip out of a communal bowl with your greasy fingers (or another chip, resulting in more chip breakage and eventual anarchy). Sometimes scooping too much can result in an imbalanced chip-to-dip ratio, when the salsa overpowers the flavor of the chip and you might as well be eating it with a spoon. Maybe that’s what you want, in which case scooping is definitely for you.

Dippers, on the other hand, are of a more conservative mind. They don’t need an overpowering amount of salsa piled on their chip to appreciate it. They might go for a scoop every now and then, but for the most part they’re content with their salsa-saving, unobtrusive method.

What about you, So Good readers? Do you maximize each square inch of chip so as to get as much salsa in your mouth as possible? Or do you actually dip your chip in, letting the powerful tang of the salsa do its work for you? Vote for your favorite salsa-dipping method below and explain your choice in the comments.

I always scoop. I just want to make sure I have a little bit of everything on my chip, but I sometimes want a giant mouthful of chunky salsa goodness. I think a little crunch from the tortilla vehicle can go a long way in providing a flavor separation from a delicious dip.